the Shadowhawk
by Brin Londo5
Summary: WIP-A group of smugglers stumble across something very interesting
1. Default Chapter

Title: Shadowhawk  
  
Author: Brin Londo5  
  
Email: ogreblood@hotmail.com  
  
Rating: PG-13, due to violence and language  
  
Summary: After the Battle of Yavin, a group of smugglers make an interesting discovery Authors Note: This story is based on my old gaming group's Star Wars RPG exploits, so information from the old West End Games version of the SW RPG will be in here, as well as side references to the old Traveller RPG from Game Designers Workshop, as well as a few new pieces from the Prequel Trilogy and Rebellion Era sourcebooks from TSR's new D20 Star Wars RPG, especially the Dark Side sourcebook and Rebellion Era and Living Force supplements, and material from the Star Wars Gamer magazine and Star Wars journal.  
  
This story is dedicated to Marty Wiseman, my pal Steve Lowe, who urged me to start writing again about our old gaming sessions, and to SithVixen, who's Website was the direct inspiration for one character in the story. Salutations and thanks to Kristen, Vaderpainter, and all the rest of the Georgia 501st Stormtrooper Garrison.  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing here except for those persons, places and things not already owned by George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd., TSR, whoever owns Traveller at the moment, or West End Games. Marty Wiseman owns Tyler Dare and the ShadowHawk. Jeffrey Parks owns ParkSabers, LTD., and the Fury, Echelon, and Malestrom/M2 Saber prop designs. No money is being made off of this piece of Fan Fiction.  
  
Prologue:  
  
The tall female strode arrogantly into the medical bay of the Dreadnaught- class ship, the Sideous, to glare at the male figure that sat consulting with a 2-1B class medical droid.  
  
"Why is.he.not in an energy cage?" The woman seethed.  
  
"Because you injured him somewhat severely in his capture, Vixen."  
  
The short-haired blond woman snarled and snapped out a .65-meter cylinder, and twin blades of crimson energy erupted from the ends.  
  
"You would do well to remember your place, acolyte. My tile is Darth Vixen, not Vixen. As a Sith Warrior to a mere acolyte, I outrank you!"  
  
"Yes, but however, both Emperor Palpatine and Lord Darth Vader wanted him healed before he is to be brought to High Inquisitor Tremayne, on Byss." The man said with a faint smile, idly rolling a 30 cm long cylinder back and forth on the table top.  
  
"You've been in communication with Vader?!? Why wasn't I informed?"  
  
"You were, just now." He used one finger to spin the cylinder in a lazy circle, giving her that almost mocking faint smile. "He may not be worthy of being taught the Sith secrets, as he will not turn willingly to the Dark side, but he will make a powerful Dark Jedi."  
  
"At least put his lightsaber* away, if he wakens in that tank, he could summon it to him!" She growled out, shutting off the double-saber with a quiet snap-hiss.  
  
"You hurt him quite severely, Darth Vixen, he had to be placed in the Bacta tank despite placing himself into a Jedi healing trance. But do not worry, anesthetics are being administered while he is in there to prevent such a thing from happening."  
  
"Do it anyway. Take no chances, even if he is still a Padawan, he fought like a full-fledged Jedi Knight. If I hadn't already killed his master, I might have ended up like Darth Maul did." She gave a brief glimpse down at the saber she wielded, a near-duplicate of Darth Mauls own double-bladed Sith lightsaber, which in turn was a longer version of Darth Bane's ancient double-bladed saber. "I daresay, he would have been ready for the trials, if he and his master weren't already running from the Purge." With that, she turned and left the medical bay.  
  
The Sith acolyte, Pedrec Vhu chuckled and lifted the lightsaber from the tabletop. He considered it's gleaming finish and the glow of the gravatic induction coils seen through a small section of transparisteel in the upper portion of the cylinder, near the emitter, and chuckled again. With a wet plop, the saber sank down the length of the Bacta tank tube, to settle in the bottom. The transparisteel window seal was cracked, so even if the Jedi within the tank could summon enough sense to summon the saber to his hand, the device wouldn't activate, the bacta would short it out temporarily.  
  
Pedrec knew he and Darth Vixen had to increase their efforts in hunting down the Jedi stragglers. only a few dozen were left unaccounted for, out of over a thousand at the start of the Clone War. "Lord' Jerec and his apprentice, Boc were assembling a team to hunt down Jedi Master Qu Rahn, who bore information Palpatine desperately wanted, information that may just lead to ending Palpatine's rumored reliance on clone bodies. If the rumors were true about that, Pedrec never wanted to reach Palpatine's level of mastery over the Dark Side; having the wild energies eat away at one's body so that you aged a decade per year was too great a cost, even if one can transfer ones essence to a new cloned body.  
  
Del Korrot and Aura Sing both were following leads on the whereabouts of Vima Da-Boda, and another group of bounty hunters and Dark Jedi were trailing Quinlan Vos. Jorus C'boath's clone was assigned to guard the Mount Tantis storage facility, and contact with Gettrem Zho had been lost after he had reportedly found the hiding place of former Jedi Council member, Master Yoda. Vader himself was hunting down the Dark Lady, while Vohn Keldath claimed to have heard rumors on the hiding place of Obi-Wan Kenobi.  
  
Leaving the Medlab behind, Pedrec strode down the corridors to return to his personal quarters. Stormtroopers saluted as he walked past. Pedrec suppressed another chuckle; while recruitment into the Stormtrooper legions was rising, a good 79% were still cloned from the template of the deceased Jango Fett. And a good percentage would always be, the genetic alterations of the clones ensured loyalty to the New Order, and blind obedience to following orders.  
  
Hours later, Darth Vixen was startled out of her meditation by being slammed forcibly against the inner wall of her meditation pod. Opening the chamber, she staggered over to the comm. Unit on the wall, as she struggled to maintain her footing and dress at the same time; while cursing at the blaring of emergency sirens and the dull red glow of hazard lighting.  
  
"Bridge, what in the deep core is going on up there???" Silence, and static- filled hissing. "Bridge, answer! Captain Chen, reply immediately!" More static-filled silence. "Engineering, what's going on in this ship?"  
  
"Lady Vixen, something yanked us out of Hyperspace, some kind of derelect gravatic mine or something, left over from the war! We re-entered realspace in the middle of a shower of asteroids and meteoroids, traveling at near- relativistic speeds! Shields are gone, and the bridge is destroyed! We have multiple hull breaches, and our Drive core is spiraling dangerously out of control!"  
  
"Where are we, engineer?"  
  
"A few light-days from the Torgan system, it's a binary star system, but one of them is a black hole; milady, even if the ship's power core doesn't blow, in less than one standard week, it'll be pulled in by the singularity's gravity well and destroyed!"  
  
"Is there a clear path to and from the medlab, at present?"  
  
"Checking internal sensors; no milady, the lab itself is intact for now, but both access corridors are open to space."  
  
Vixen cursed to herself. She wanted to turn the prisoner over to Inquisitor Tremayne, by herself. But, even though that opportunity was now lost, the Jedi's inevitable death in the singularity's event horizon was an acceptable alternative. "Is the hangar bay still intact?"  
  
"Yes, milady, at the moment."  
  
"Then begin the evacuation alert, and alert ISB command that the crew's escape-pods will need rescue before you all get sucked in." She turned the comm.-unit off before the officer had a chance to acknowledge.  
  
Quickly, she raced to her gear locker, and began calmly but rapidly selecting items. She put on an emergency skin-suit, identical to the ones worn by Stormtroopers, and grabbed an emergency breathmask. It held a two- hour air supply, more than enough to reach the hangar bay. She grabbed her double lightsaber, and almost as an afterthought, she grabbed another lightsaber.the lightsaber she had taken from the padawan's master.  
  
The lightsaber** was indeed a work of art. The outer casing was a strange silvery alloy with golden tints to it, beautifully designed with cutouts that gave it a sweeping, oceanic look, with diagonally angled strips connecting the lower, middle, and upper sections. The grip was black, ribbed lengthways, and placed at the bottom half of the saber. The top half, visible underneath the outer casing, was of a brilliant blue alloy, and the emitter assembly was decorated with the gripper-claws of some kind of droid, possibly a combat or maintenance model of some kind, judging by the fact that the saber blade would appear through a small port located directly between the three opposable claws.  
  
Not that the Sith Warrior spent any such time gazing at the lightsaber during this emergency, she just clipped it to her belt as she suited up, her black Sith robes over the skin-suit. Stumbling as the dreadnaught lurched from repeated meteor impacts, she sealed her gloves and boots, attached the breathmask, and then stepped into the corridor. Troopers and naval personnel scurried like vermin-beetles with the lights suddenly turned on, and Vixen had to shove a few out of her way as she headed to the hangar bay.  
  
Pedrec Vhu had similar ideas, but unfortunately for him, a meteoroid punched through the hull in the corridor he had chosen as his escape route to the hangar bay. His scream echoed inside his breathmask as the void sucked him into space.  
  
Twice, Darth Vixen had to adjust her escape route, and at one point had to space-walk through a ruptured corridor adjacent to the outer hull. Occasional jolts ran through the ship when a meteoroid with enough mass or velocity managed to penetrate the hull of the dreadnaught, which had lost much of its own speed from the friction of the meteor storm. From time to time the ship shuddered as escape pods were fired, although if the imperial rescue ships failed to arrive, the escape pods would suffer the same fate destined for the ship itself. Finally, she reached the hangar bay, watching for a brief moment as panicked crewmen and pilots hoisted themselves into imperial Tie-fighters, seeking a short-sighted escape from the doomed vessel. Fools, she thought; Tie's lacked hyperdrives, so they couldn't escape the system even if they had enough of a charge in the fuel cells, and no shields. Most of them wouldn't survive more than a few minutes out in the meteor shower. Two other vessels shared the hangar bay with the Tie's, a Seinar Fleet Systems Lone Scout-A scout ship, similar to the smaller Tie's, with bent-wing ion-panels and a bubble cockpit in front of the vessels mass, and a Villani Star-Drive's S/TL-15 Scout/Courier, of the Type J Seeker model, an older ship, designed with the triangular shape popular in the decade right before the Clone War, like the Jedi Delta-7 Starfighter and the Victory-class Star Destroyers. She ran to the Seeker, keyed open the airlocks entry-pad, and ran to the small one-man bridge. Quickly running through the warm-up and activation phases, Vixen piloted the ship out of the bay, thrusting out into the cold void of space. Using the body of the dreadnaught as a shield, she sped off through the larger vessels shadow, striving to exit the binary star's gravity well sufficiently to jump to hyperspace.  
  
(Next: Chapter one)  
  
Authors Notes 2: The asterix (*) used in the Prologue concerning Dirk's lightsaber, and the (admittedly poor) description thereof is based off of the Parksabers Echelon saber prop. The double asterix (**) and description of his master Dogo's lightsaber are based off of the Parksabers Malestrom M2 saber prop. No copyright infringement is intended in their use in this work of fan-fiction, and all rights concerning these Ignited Parksabers products belong to Jeffrey Parks, of Parksabers, Inc. 


	2. chapter 2

Chapter one: the ShadowHawk  
  
"Blastoh patogga, Grusk, where in the nine pits did we jump to?" Shouted the slightly scruffy-looking human, as he limped into the freighter's bridge.  
  
"You sssaid we needed to jump anywhere, Tyler, ssso I jumped here. According to the chartsss, it'sss the Torgan sssyssstem." Replied the Trandoshan seated in the main pilot's chair.  
  
"A black hole system??? It's a binary system, we could have been sucked in, depending on which star we were facing when we hopped out of the jump!"  
  
"Yesss, the Imperialsss would have to be crazy to follow us here, no?"  
  
"Yes, and so would WE! Next time, Grusk, I program the jump!"  
  
"That'd be a little hard to do, Cap'n, " said the ships engineer, Nima Ryndor, an attractive human female. "Since you insisted that you would be in the gunnery chair, shooting those Tie's off our bow."  
  
Tyler fumed for a second, then conceded, "Point. Let's see where we can jump to from here, before we rendezvous with the Alliance fleet, we still have a contract to fulfill;" he said, as the rest of the crew chimed in on Tyler's pet phrase, "No Contract, No Credits."  
  
"Hrmmm, Cap'n, I found sssomething on sssensssorsss, looksss like a ship."  
  
"Imperials?"  
  
"Not sssure, large ship, it ssseemsss to be derelect, and caught in the gravatic 'sssweet ssspot' between the ssstarsss."  
  
"Damn, you're right, Grusk, it looks like it's circling the umbilicus right at the gravatic balance point between the black hole and it's binary white dwarf." Tyler replied, while checking it out on sensors. No signals coming from the ship, and there's no rescue or salvage ships in sight." He turned to the others. "What do you think, guys? It's a little close to the singularity, but we could try to use the dwarf's gravity to edge us away. Salvage, anyone?" He looked back to his crew.  
  
"I am in." Grusk said, always eager to find something new.  
  
"Well, you'll need me, regardless, Tyler. That could be a smuggler base, an old Imperial trap, or just a derelect ship, but in any of those cases, you'll need a good mechanic to haul your space-happy brain back to the ship when your plans inevitably go wrong."  
  
"Hey, my plans never go wrong, reality fails to keep up with me, that's all."  
  
The vaguely saucer-shaped craft came in from the far side of the white dwarf, skimming the star's corona as they slowly adjusted the ship's systems to the varying gravity fields of the twin stars. A near constant plume of plasma, super-heated gasses, and raw nuclear forces connected the two stellar bodies, spiraling out from the white dwarf, to be sucked into the event horizon of the black hole. The freighter carefully followed the trail of power down, to where a large, visibly damaged vessel orbited the plume, trapped between the gravity fields of the two stars, hanging by the dwarfs gravity and it's own momentum.  
  
"Jabba's jowls, Tyler, what kind of ship is THAT?"  
  
"It looks kind of familiar, I've seen one somewhere.I got it! It's an old Dreadnaught class ship, they were phased out right after the Clone Wars."  
  
"You mean to tell usss that that thing's been caught there for nearly twenty yearsss?" Grusk asked, disbelief in his raspy voice.  
  
"Weirder things have happened, pal. If that ship came in at just the right angle, at near-light-speed, it could have been caught in the white dwarf's gravity well, slingshot around towards the black hole, and been pulled back to the dwarf just in time to achieve a sort of balance point, like we're seeing here."  
  
"But for twenty years?"  
  
"Hey, if we are the first ones here, think of all the supplies we can sell to the Alliance. Early E-11 blasters, power packs, maybe even clone armor, to be re-painted and resold to rebel Spec forces troops! Medical Supplies, stuff like that! We have a treasure trove here, let's get what we can!"  
  
"Ah, creditsss."  
  
"Yeah, enough to get Ploovo Two-for-one off our backs."  
  
"Oooh, this'd really torque daddy off; first, his little girl runs off to be a smuggler, then she ends up supplying weapons and gear to the Rebel Alliance." said Nima, thinking of just how many shades of red the Moff would turn when he found out. "From old Imperial sources, yet."  
  
Tyler rolled his eyes and brought the ship in, matching speed and trajectory with the ancient Dreadnaught. Tractor beams and magnetic grapplers brought the freighter closer to the larger ship, and a few buttons thrown on the freighters control panel extended an airlock juncture to the airlocks on the Dreadnaught.  
  
"Okay, everyone, suit-up, full EVA, I don't want any accidents while onboard, this rust-bucket took one hell of a pounding, so who knows what kind of condition the insides are gonna be like."  
  
Shortly, the crewmates floated down the short tube to the other ship, as the freighter's airlock cycled shut behind them. Tyler looked at the dreadnaught's airlock, and then turned to Nima.  
  
"Think you can patch some of our power to this door, get it open for us?"  
  
"No sweat, slim, we'll be in there faster than you can finish off a bottle of Corelian whisky."  
  
".Okay then." Again, with the slim comment. Just because a guy's a little on the lanky side.  
  
With an inaudible hiss of escaping atmosphere, the door slid open, pushing the crew back a meter, before they could grab safeties in the tube. Nima removed the power-shunt she'd rigged, and the three entered a darkened hallway.  
  
"Light, everyone. No power, and this thing's been floating here so long, even the emergency power's gone dead. Unless there's a breach in the ALL the walls, some of the rooms and corridors will have atmosphere, so be prepared, but remember that the air is stale, and possibly tainted, so everyone keep your helmets on."  
  
"A rookie, I am not, Tyler."  
  
"He was talking to me, Grusk, not you." Nima interjected  
  
The Trandoshan pried open a turbolift portal, and the smugglers slowly floated down the shaft. Lack of artificial gravity did come in handy at times, Tyler thought. Using the shaft as a shortcut, they soon made their way to the main engine room, where the primary power plant sat, dead. Nima quickly began checking the ion/fusion plant systems.  
  
"Any chance of getting that beast back online, so we can get around easier in this heap?"  
  
"Not a chance, Tyler. I'm surprised this thing didn't just detonate, and blow this pile of scrap to kingdom come. We're gonna have to rely on the portable unit I brought, and be glad that no power means no gravity limits to what we can haul back. All we'll have to worry about will be size, not weight."  
  
"Well, there'sss sssome sssmall favorsss." Grusk said over the comlink. Over the next six or so hours, the crew proceeded to cycle open doors, check what they could find, rummaging through equipment lockers and frozen bodies for usable items before hauling equipment back to their ship's cargo bay whenever there became too much to carry. Space-frozen foodstuffs, weapons and power packs, technical gear.all went back to the modified freighter.  
  
"What's this place?" Tyler asked, tired of the rapid monotony of the trip.  
  
"Medical Bay, I think. We'll know as soon as the door cycles." Atmosphere jetted out into the void, and Grusk rasped, "Tyler, we've hit the jackpot."  
  
"Let's take a look and see."  
  
Loose medical gear floated around the room, along with a 2-1B class droid, and Nima gave a low whistle at something near the back of the room. Tyler and Grusk busied themselves with rummaging through the nearer medical supply cabinets, stuffing cargo-bags with items that might still be usable. No telling how being flash-frozen would affect certain drugs and chemical compounds, but syntheflesh and other items should be okay.  
  
"Tyler."  
  
"Yeah, what?"  
  
"There's a full Bacta tank back here, plus reserves." Nima winced as Tyler whooped over the comlink, and the captain quickly 'swam' into the back to join the engineer.  
  
"Nima, you just made us, rich, girl!"  
  
"Er, Tyler, there's someone in there."  
  
"HUH??!?" Tyler peered past her, into the amber-colored frozen gel. Just as she mentioned, a body floated in the solidified bacta. "Crap, and we've got no time to just chip him out here. We'll just have to take the whole thing, and chip him out back at the ship, before the bacta melts and he ruins the batch."  
  
A little work with a vibro-blade and a hydrospanner, and the smugglers were able to free the trio of tanks and haul them out through the rent in the corridor outside, to the cargo bay of their ship. Soon, they were prepared to leave.  
  
Tyler and Nima both worked together to place the shaped charges that would remove the evidence that they were ever there, tipping the dreadnaught out of the gravatic anomaly and giving the freighter the needed extra thrust they might just need to avoid slipping down into the gravity-well of the singularity, themselves. A muted thud rang throughout the hull as they were pushed away from the derelect, and Tyler toggled the thrusters, soaring back towards the visible of the two stars. Once again, he skimmed the outer atmosphere of the star, using its gravity to slingshot them into deep space, hurtling through the system towards the starry void.  
  
"Well, now that the Hoth base is gone, where do we meet the rebels,  
Grusk?"  
  
"Anoath, according to Commander Organa. After we rendezvous there, we'll receive ordersss on where the main rebel bassse will be."  
  
Tyler shrugged, wondering to himself why they didn't just head back to the Tierfon Base, and unload the goods there, but he realized that they might get a better price dealing with the commander of the former Hoth base. Major Thomen of the Tierfon Base was a bit of a prick, in Tyler's opinion. Instead of saying any of that out loud, he just calculated the next two jumps that would bring them to the Anoath system. That done, as the stars spiked into the swirling mess of hyperspace, Tyler walked back to the galley and prepped a meal for himself. After relaxing and enjoying his meal, he stretched and told the others to get some tools and join him in the cargo bay.  
  
Standing there with a percussion hammer in one hand, a vibro-blade in the other, and a bucket-like container by his side, Tyler shrugged and reminded the others "Hey, we've got to get this dead Imperial out of the goods, before he thaws out and contaminates the bacta."  
  
Nima, who had been checking the other items, walked over to help out. As she climbed a stepladder to hand a lead for the gravity winch to Tyler, a unit clipped to her belt beeped.  
  
"Nima, turn that scanner off, the G-winch is going to futz it up."  
  
"Tyler, that wasn't the G-winch. there's some kind of active energy source inside the bacta tank." She began actively running the scanner along the scuffed outsides of the bacta tank.  
  
"What, a diagnostic gizmo of some kind must have got knocked in when the gravity was lost, that's all." She raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Oh, really? Then why's it at the bottom of the tank, vacc-brain?" She ran the device further up the side of the tank.".no way is that possible.Tyler..?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"The Imperial.he's alive."  
  
"WHAT??? Bantha-poodoo, no way is anyone gonna be alive after spending two decades frozen like that!"  
  
"The scanner's definitely picking up a low bio-electric charge from the so- called dead guy. I think he might be in hibernation freeze, or something."  
  
"Crap. If he's alive, let's hurry up and get him cut out of there. Nima, go back and get those emergency cold-world med-kits out, he'll need that. Grusk, after we get him out, you keep cutting thru the bacta, see if you can dig out that gadget that Nima found, and see if it's of any use."  
  
"Gotcha. It should be, if it'sss held a charge for over a decade. That's good workmanship."  
  
* * * 


	3. chapter3

The world spun and blurred, and Dirk had a hard time making sense of his perceptions. Sounds roared in his ears, and the temperature seemed to fluctuate wildly.  
  
**Center yourself, Dirk.** A voice rang out in his mind. **Concentrate, heal yourself, and you will be able to see and hear again.** Dirk did as the voice commanded, and his vision unblurred.  
  
"You're going to be suffering from hibernation sickness for a while," an auburn-haired woman to his right was slowly and loudly saying to him, just relax, your sight and hearing will slowly return to normal." A tall, lanky dark-haired man stood next to her, a nasty looking heavy blaster pistol strapped to his belt..  
  
"Actually, miss, I can see and hear you perfectly well. Now before you turn me over to your master, may I at least have my clothing back?" With a slight tug through the force, the blaster flew into Dirks grasp, which he quickly brought to bear on the two. "On second thought, I think I'll get out of here on my own." Quickly adjusting the setting , he stunned both of the shocked pair.  
  
Wrapping the thermal blanket around himself, Dirk stood, noting with distaste the faint odor of bacta, then proceeded to stride out through the open doorway.or try to. He took three steps, then his legs seemed to vanish from underneath him, and Dirk sat puzzled in the floor. Huh, he thought, why won't my legs work? Then he remembered what the woman said.something about hibernation sickness. But you don't get ill from a healing trance, or a hibernation trance, either one. Just how long was I out? He wondered, as consciousness slid away once more.  
  
Once again, Dirk Talon knelt, trying to get his left leg to work despite the deep saber burn through his thigh. The woman who called herself Darth Vixen stood over him, spinning that two-bladed lightsaber of hers like a baton in one hand, holding his fallen master's own lightsaber in the other. He looked past her to the fallen form of his master's body, the fallen lavender-skinned form of twi'lek Jedi Dogo Dal-Odo, his head looking so lop-sided with one of his lekku head-tails severed during the fight which killed him. The sith woman's foot pinned his remaining lightsaber to the ground, the other destroyed during the battle. The woman taunted him, mocking his holding to the light, revealing that the council was wrong about one thing.the rule of two. While there was always only one master and one apprentice among the sith, the sith were broken into three castes, Lords, Warriors, and Acolytes. thus, there were in truth six sith at all times, not just two. Then she started slashing and stabbing at him with her lightsaber, over, and over, and.  
  
"Al right, wake up, you!" Dirk blinked as he returned from sleep, to find himself restrained in a bunk. "I don't know HOW you did that, but I don't care. You're gonna stay here until I think it's safe to let you up again, got it?" The tall man glared angrily at Dirk, but it seemed a normal kind of anger, not the all-consuming rage of a sith.  
  
"I.I'm sorry, but I thought you were someone else." He looked around.  
"This isn't the inside of an Imperial ship."  
  
"Chuuba, no, it isn't an Imperial ship! Just who the blazes are you, anyway?"  
  
"Sorry about Tyler," the woman said, "he kind of got angry at being shot with his own blaster." That drew a chuckle from her other companion, a greenish-tan Trandoshan. She visibly winced at the reptiles laugh.  
  
"My apologies, to all. I am.Dirk Talon, and I was a prisoner on an Imperial dreadnaught until I woke up here.wherever here is."  
  
"You're on board my ship, the ShadowHawk," Tyler said. Dirk sat there. "What, you've never heard of the ShadowHawk? C'mon, she and the Millennium Falcon are tied as being the two fastest ships in the galaxy! The Starlight Intruder comes in a pale second!" Dirk still looked uncomprehending.  
  
"Er, Tyler, he's been frozen, remember? Corellian YT-1760's were still a new ship design around that time. He's never heard of those three ships." Tyler fumed at that.  
  
"This is a 1760? I've seen the YT-1300 design before, that side-mounted cockpit looks dangerous to me." Dirk said, an odd tone to his voice.  
  
"Yeah, that's why I got a 1760, instead, same basic design, but the cockpit is mounted in the center of the front, between and slightly above the cargo mandibles." Tyler said, his anger suddenly, inexplicably reduced to mere irritation. Dirk smiled, and continued to talk technology with the ShadowHawk's captain, asking questions about the ships engines, it's modified hyperdrive, the fact that the cargo hold was smaller than normal to make room for shield generators and structural reinforcements; and the top-side quad-laser cannon that the crew had installed along with the ion cannon on the bottom side of the hull.  
  
"Sarlacc's bones, you've turned this ship into a flying gunboat, Captain!" Dirk proclaimed. "What are you people, Pirates? Bounty Hunters?"  
  
"Nope, we're independent traders of officially illicit materials."  
  
"Smugglers is what Tyler's trying to say." The woman interjected.  
  
"Captain Tyler?" Dirk recalled once seeing a holo-drama about an inept, lecherous starship captain by that name.and by the look on 'Tyler's' face, so had he.  
  
"The name's Tyler Dare, Popsicle-boy, Captain of the ShadowHawk. This is my co-pilot, Grusk, and the ship's mechanic," "Engineer!" the woman objected, "Nima Ryndor, engineer on the ShadowHawk. And you, Dirk Talon" If that is your real name, Tyler thought, "are on board MY ship. We found you frozen inside a bacta tank, inside the hulk of a derelect dreadnaught class ship. It doesn't look like the Imperials gave much of an effort to rescuing the crew, judging by some of the bodies we found on board. Most had been killed by the lack of air, when the life support gave out; others were flash- frozen like yourself, but dead. You were extremely lucky, kid, somehow the bacta tank kept you in hibernation, right on the very edge of that last space-walk."  
  
"Er Tyler, " Nima whispered to him as she pulled him aside, "Earlier you were convinced this guy was an Imperial, now your telling him everything about us??? What's wrong with you?"  
  
"Huh? I." he shot a suspicious look at Dirk, who lay on the bed. "Okay, something funny is going on, here. If this guy is an Imperial, we just gave ourselves away to this guy. On the other hand, if he was a prisoner, like he said, he must have been fairly important for them to go to all the trouble of healing him up in a bacta tank. Either way, we can't let him loose.we're gonna have to turn him over to the Rebels and let their Intelligence people figure out what to do with him."  
  
"Cap'n, " Grusk said, in as low a whisper as his rasping bass could go, "The gadget I hauled out of the bacta? Looksss like sssome kind of energy- basssed cutting tool, it'sss got a high-powered energy cell, a raw cryssstal I can't ID asss a lasing gem, and a couple of other jewelsss that are linked with a trio of energy-guidesss asss sssome kind of focusssing array. The jewelsss are natural gemsss, too and I can't ID thossse either; when I run them through the mineralogical databassse, they come up as ressstricted information, under Imperial code sssomething-or-other. "  
  
"Could it be a weapon of some kind, a laser disguised as a work-tool?"  
  
"Not at the moment, it'ss sssoaked in bacta, it'd have to dry out firssst. And not likely, it'sss got a one-meter range, there'sss a gravatic focusssing disssk that arcs the beam back into the unit, which rechargesss itsss own power cell. But if it'sss a laser, I'm a wookie; the beam those gemsss would emit would be an entire order of magnitude more intenssse than any laser I've ever ssseen, The bonds on the molecules of the gems are almossst fourth-dimensional ssstrong-bondsss, harder than any diamond ever produced. Lasing them would make a cutting beam with a wavelength that almost coils in on itssself, like the lased plasma of Tibanna gas when shot from a blassster."  
  
"Which would explain how the disc-unit could arc the energy like a plasma- cutter loop." Nima mused.  
  
"Except it's a very tight arc, elongated to double in on itself, almost, the effect would seem like a rod about a meter long." Tyler guessed. "Some kind of mining tool? An experimental shipyard scrap-cutter?"  
  
"Not likely, " Nima said, scratching her scalp in frustration. "I've seen something like it before, I just can't place where.something back on Hoth, I think."  
  
"Right now, we've got our mystery guest to tend to." Tyler remarked, turning back to the med-cot's occupant. "So, Mr. Talon, is it? We're going to take you as far as some friends of ours who we're re-supplying, and you can deal with matters there. Sorry, but we've got other runs to make, afterwards."  
  
"Look, I'm grateful for the rescue, and all, but could I have my clothes back?"  
  
"You were in a bacta tank, kid. You can scrounge some spares out of some stuff we picked up a few runs ago, if you want."  
  
Soon, Dirk was dressed in a pair of tan-colored trousers and jacket, with a light green undershirt, and he completed the ensemble with forest-green half-cloak someone had left behind, as well. Not quite the trousers, tunic and robes the Jedi Padawan was used to, but he had to admit, he looked good, nonetheless. He clipped his lightsaber, returned by the ShadowHawk's captain, onto the belt, and holstered on an antique Corellian Arms S-5 Heavy Blaster Pistol and Ascension Gun. The device was good as both camouflage and a useful tool, since it could be used in climbing, and no one would expect a Jedi to be wearing so crude a weapon as a blaster. 


End file.
